[Tango-L] Approaches to Learning and Authencity (or the lack of if)

[ceverett@ceverett.com]

On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 04:54:00 +0100, "Chris, UK" <tl2 at chrisjj.com> said:
> Gary wrote:
> 
> But of course the teaching income would be far lower. Economic natural 
> selection favours teachers who present tango as a pattern dance... 
> to beginners through prescriptive steps, right up to so-called 
> advanced through this so-called structural analysis / tango grammar.

This statement has no evidence to back it up.  I've heard some 
people who know diddly about teaching tango (and indeed diddly 
about the dance), say that beginners need to learn steps to feel 
like they have something worthwhile.  

However, the universe is full of step merchants barely able to 
pay for their studio, teaching classes of 8 to 12 beginners and 
4 to 6 intermediates, having to find new students all the time, 
etc.

What I think:

Outside of being a name brand (Fabian, Gustavo, Chicho, Pablo,
Julio and a few others), what makes a teacher economically 
viable is how much fun his or her students have in classes.  
No other criteria deserve mention.  For that matter, I'm sure
that name brand or no, people who can't put a smile on their 
student's faces aren't going to remain a name brand for long.

So at one extreme, you have people like Fernanda Ghi and 
Guillermo Merlo, and at the other extreme you have your 
Brigitte Winklers and Thomas Howlins of the world.  They're 
all a lot of fun and they all do fairly well.

That being said, I see a significant movement among some of 
the people organizing the larger festivals in the US (like 
the ones in Atlanta and Denver) to bring on teachers who 
don't teach steps per se.  Rather, they intend to equip 
students with the tools needed to do anything their bodies 
might need to do in the dance, up to and including a good 
appreciation of the music, along with the the ability to 
respond to it in a way that's both emotional and disciplined.

And before we get all uppity at the step merchants, it's 
also clear to me that once you have embedded the basics of 
tango movement in your muscle memory, they are extremely 
valuable for showing you all kinds of cool things that you 
never thought of.  There's always a place in the world for 
a some of those.

Christopher